Just One Yesterday
by lozzieee dreams
Summary: Of all the Vicodin in the world, she had to crop up at the bottom of that one. Plagued by memories, House is met with a brand new challenge which he's not sure he can meet. Eventually, the past always comes back to bite you in the ass, and there's always complications. Set around series four, after Wilson's third divorce and Stacy's exit. Rated T for future chapters.
1. A Trip Down Amnesia Lane

In the darkness of his living room, he sat with an open bottle of bourbon on the coffee table in front of him, almost perfectly halfway between the leg that rested there and the phone he was stoically ignoring as it rang. The ice in the crystal glass rattled as he lifted it to his lips for a sip – the liquid burned at his throat as he drank, but left a sweet after-taste on his tongue.

The TV flashed white haze, the light jumping through the prism of his glass and casting a partial rainbow effect on his wrist; he watched it pensively, not wholly appreciating the beautiful spectacle. His mind was otherwise occupied with flashbacks and memories so close he could taste them, but so far away he wasn't sure they mattered anymore.

As he mused, the phone rang once more. He didn't need to answer it or even look at the caller ID to know who it was because his best – and arguably only – friend had been calling non-stop for approximately three hours. Or, if he were to be exact, two hours and fifty-seven minutes.

But he didn't need company, not right now. Loneliness was his solace from the ache of humanity, and home was his perfectly misanthropic paradise against stupidity and falseness. His epitome of truth was that everybody lies, and he himself was no exception. He was the biggest liar of all, because all of his omissions added up to all the lies in the world. The biggest lie of all, he pondered well into the darkness of night.

Sonia Harvey.

He was working part-time in a tiny little book store, working through a medical degree whilst battling a suspension from his last medical school. It was a slow day but then, every day was a slow day. Behind the front desk he sat, reading a second edition Conan Doyle and waiting for the bell of the door to ring. He was happiest when it didn't.

It was after lunch one day when the bell finally rang. Almost instinctively he sighed, closing the book a page before the final chapter and rolling his idle eyes. The culprit hadn't surfaced yet, choosing to disappear between the shelves and go straight to the source of their poison before braving his sunny disposition.

She had already known what she wanted before stepping inside, because she was at the desk with a pile of medical books from here to Canada in less time than he had to take a breath of her sweet perfume. Her eyes hit him square in the face, and he was forced to make a rare double take.

He started from her feet up. Snow boots don't often mix with denim jeans but on her, they worked. Her legs were longer than the Nile, meeting an ass at the Med sea that he could have bounced a quarter off; the Bon Jovi shirt knotted at the waist didn't discourage him. Her long, red hair fell in waves down her denim-clad back, held back by a pretentious beret that was held in with pins.

The button nose sat between cheekbones that would make Marilyn cry, gently apple-red from the angry gale outside. Snow was still crystallised and unmelted in her hair, reflecting the light in the tiny book store like rubies and diamonds. Her lips, rouged and softened by some tinted balm, curled into a smile that made even his heart thud a little.

But he could never forget those eyes.

He couldn't quite recall how it happened – or maybe it was more that he didn't care for 'how' – but they'd spent the night together. She was great and she thought he was great. In between locking lips and limbs, they talked extensively about radical new medical procedures and invasive new machines. They'd fallen asleep in his small, college dorm-room just as the sun began to rise.

When he awoke in the morning, she was gone. He'd kept his eyes open for her, but she seemed to have disappeared without a trace, and he wasn't the guy to ask around and chase. Waiting was never his style, and she was at the back of his mind by the time the next girl came along.

But he never forgot her.

'House.'

It was half past ten – he was already very late. As he limped through the automatic doors, leaning heavily on his cane and looking everywhere but at her, Gregory House sighed through his nostrils. His mood wasn't particularly high anyway, and having his boss in his face after a poor night of sleep was not going to help it any.

'House!'

Finally, his eyes fell on her. Lisa Cuddy, in all of her mediocre attraction, was particularly striking when she was furious. Ever the antagonist, House grinned at her – it provoked the desired response and she glowered at him, the blue file in her hand crumpling slightly under the pressure of her frustration.

'Cuddy!' House beamed sardonically as he approached her, dipping his hand into the bowl of lollipops. 'Your ass is looking particularly titanic today.'

'Can it, House,' Cuddy seethed, forcing the file into his hand. 'Thirty year old male presenting with vomiting and abdominal pain.'

House pulled the candy from his mouth, regarding the woman with haughty derision. 'You're handing me a simple case of vomiting and abdominal pain?'

'Yes,' Cuddy said simply, moving the bowl before he could plunge his hand in for a pop for later. 'And you're gonna take it because you're ridiculously late.'

Another look of derision. 'That's not a good enough reason.'

Cuddy exhaled in fury, pinching the bridge of her nose as she chewed over their typical morning dance against The Man, and then – much to House's amusement – smiled, her eyes nipped at the corners to reveal how forced it was. 'You're taking this case because I'm your boss. End of story.'

She pushed it once more, rather hard, into his hand before whipping around – he was hit in the face by her typical perfume – and beginning to walk away. House's eyes had barely fallen to her backside when she turned back around.

'Oh, and there's a woman in your office.'

'What does she want?' House asked, his mouth still full of lollipop.

Cuddy shrugged. 'How the hell should I know? She asked for you. Now deal with it and leave me alone.'

House smirked to himself as she walked into the clinic, anger flowing from her in waves. He hobbled towards the elevator, lifting his cane so he could call it from three feet away. He'd always thought it was cool that he could do that, even if that was the only reason his cane was cool.

'House!'

Who now, he thought. His days were filled with constant annoyances, and one of said annoyances was walking briskly up behind him. The elevator arrived and House stepped in, turning around to see the horrified face of his best friend as he ran to catch the lift.

When the panic eclipsed every other emotion in his eyes, House smirked and threw his cane out in front of him, jamming it in the doors before they closed, causing it to slide back open in protestation. James Wilson stood, sweating just a little from his exertion, and fixed House with a look of pure annoyance.

'You bastard.'

'You love it,' House retorted, his smirk more broad.

Wilson shook his head and stepped into the elevator, and this time the doors were allowed to close comfortably. House's smirk was ever-fixed as they moved up the building, and Wilson sighed through his nose as he adjusted his askew tie.

'So. Your phone not working?'

'I was busy,' House lied, stepping out of the elevator as soon as it opened.

Wilson followed, not backing down without some modicum of a fight. 'On a Tuesday night? I hope she was worth the money.'

'Always hookers with you. You have sex on the brain, Wilson; you need to get laid.' House felt pleased with his remark, and pressed on towards his office as fast as his cane would take him. Wilson kept pace easily with his long strides.

'Always with the put-downs. Maybe if you stopped systematically destroying every single one of your relationships before they have a chance to blossom, you might feel less of a need to take it out on me.'

House stopped and turned to his best friend, mock trauma on his face. 'Words hurt, Jimmy.'

Wilson gave House another of his typical looks and sauntered past him towards his own office. 'Goodbye, House.'

His words weren't heard because House was staring through the glass door of his private office. In his peripheral he clocked his three fellows pouring over their latest case – Cuddy had got to them first – but it was the least of his concerns.

In his office, with her back to him, sat a woman. Most people would have been pleased that she had the decency to sit in the guest chair, but House overlooked this because she was playing with his over-sized tennis ball. Now he would have to deal with her, because she was touching his stuff.

As he burst through the door, he kept his eyes to the ground as he shrugged off his coat, ambling over to his desk. At his chair, he threw his grey long-coat over the back and flopped heavily into the cushioning, leaning forward and squeezing his damaged leg as it ached. He ignored the woman, taking the orange bottle of pills from his shirt pocket and shaking five or six into his hands. He threw them into his mouth, swallowing them all in one go as he closed his eyes at the relief.

The woman cleared her throat and House opened his eyes, staring at the tiled ceiling.

'Doctor... House?'

House looked down, staring for a few seconds at his computer screen before turning to face the woman. The first thing that hit him was her eyes. Her poker-straight brown hair was pulled into a ponytail that fell in layers to the middle of her shoulder blades with bangs that tickled her lashes, surrounding her relatively pointed face that squared off into a strong chin. A long, rounded nose with a slight upturn was ensconced between her oh-so-high cheek bones, slapped apple-red from the New Jersey cold.

He stared at her and she dropped her eyes to the floor, biting her lip in a manner pulled straight from his memories.

'I'm Jess,' she said quietly, holding out her hand and meeting his gaze again. She dropped the hand when he ignored it, still staring at those eyes. 'My... mom said you'd be here.'

House couldn't gather his thoughts. Those eyes – they were the same size, the same shape, even the same shade of green. Sonia's ghost there to haunt him, just one more time, just like she had last night.

'What d'you want.' It was a statement, not a question.

The girl looked flustered, knotting the fingers she stared at. He noted that her voice was lower in tenure than Sonia's had been, almost mannish in pitch, and the girl chewed her nails – a nasty habit, House thought.

'I'm here because my mom... told me to come here,' she finally uttered. She sounded nervous, almost afraid. The girl looked up again, her whole face a delicate shade of pink. 'She said you were the greatest man she'd ever known, and that you were the best doctor ever. She said you were...' The girl laughed nervously and looked down, a flash of something in her eyes so brief that House couldn't catch it. 'Awesome.'

'Well.' House spoke finally, sitting back in his chair as his interest peaked. 'I am awesome.'

'Yeah, she said you'd say that.'

House stared at the hunched girl, the familiar crease forming between his eyes. She was a new puzzle, one he didn't want to want to figure out, but one he knew he couldn't not figure out. Grammatical nuisances aside, House was drawn to this Rubix cube of a girl.

As if on cue, the door to the conference room opened and in stepped his team, each holding a copy of the new case. Allison Cameron's eyes went straight to the girl, who seemed to shrink even more in her unobviously obvious jealous stare. Eric Foreman also clocked the girl, but his look didn't linger as Cameron's did – he wanted to get on with his job. Robert Chase did the opposite to everyone and ignored her, believing that was what House wanted him to do.

'Guys,' House announced, hopping out of his seat and balancing his weight insecurely on his cane. 'This is...' Holding out his hand in introduction, he realised he couldn't remember the girls name. He rounded his gaze on her; in response, she turned pinker.

'Jessica,' the girl sputtered, tugging at her sleeves. 'Jessica Harvey-Porter.'

House tried to keep his reaction off his face, but knew he wouldn't succeed for long. Instead, he utilised his time-honoured method of walking away from the situation. He pushed roughly between his black Fellow and his foreign Fellow, figuring pushing past Cameron would probably break her shoulder.

His storm out carried him to Wilson's office. Without stopping, he pulled open and walked through the heavy, wooden door and carried on across the office, until he threw himself down on the squat grey couch. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wilson staring, but kept his own eyes to the ceiling.

'Here to apologise?' Wilson asked sarcastically, turning back to his work. 'You shouldn't have.'

'Her name,' House started, ignoring his friends remark. 'Is Jessica... Harvey-Porter.'

Wilson placed down his pen and looked at House, puzzled. 'Who's name?'

'The girl in my office,' House explained quietly.

After a seconds silence, Wilson spoke. 'Harvey. Why does that sound familiar?' It was a few more seconds while Wilson rifled through the desk drawers of his memory, searching for relevance. His eyes widened as he realised. 'Harvey, as in...?'

'I don't know.' House was feeling a little irate. 'She just said her mom sent her.'

'She didn't say who her mom is?' House shook his head. Wilson tried deftly to ease the situation and placate his friend. 'Then it could mean something else. She could be someone else.'

House shook his head again, still not looking away from the ceiling but spinning his cane on his fingertips slowly. 'I know those eyes...'

'Lots of people have green eyes, House,' Wilson argued, fixing him with his best don't-be-an-idiot look.

'Not like these.'

Wilson narrowed his eyes, picking up his pen again for something to do. 'So... what does she want from you?'

'Don't know...' House stood, again placing all of his weight precariously onto his cane. 'Don't care.'

With that, House left Wilson's office, leaving the other man at a loss for words. He didn't go back to his own office; she was a reminder of someone who he used to know, long before his medical career, long before the infarction that changed his life. He didn't need to know her, and he didn't want to.


	2. Oh Captain, My Captain

House lay in the hospital bed, slowly masticating a chicken-mayo sandwich. The man in a coma was propped in the visitor's chair, slumped miserably over his pillow as his splayed arm hung with wires. The IV beside his crumpled frame dripped slowly but House ignored the faint sound, too immersed in the TV soap playing on the small screen.

The door of the room slid open as House took another inhuman bite, crossing his ankles the other way to avoid pins and needles. The figure sauntered over to the bed and sat on the edge, her arms folded across her meagre chest.

'House.'

'I'm busy,' he muttered, his mouth still full. Cameron sighed and slowly leaned forward, snatched the remote from its place next to his thigh and turned off the TV. House looked at her with annoyance, swallowing and saying sarcastically, 'I was watching that, y'know.'

'Who is she?' Cameron asked, seriousness in her tone.

House sighed and put down his half-sandwich on its wrapper, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and reaching for his cane. Cameron rose as he did, folding her arms again and adopting a similar stance to the one Cuddy used when she was mad at him. As he turned, he fixed Cameron with a stare of resounding annoyance, and she faltered slightly in her resolve.

'Don't know...' He repeated the words he'd left Wilson, looking at the door behind her as he ambled slowly towards it. 'Don't care,' he finished in her ear as he passed, and she noticeably shivered at his proximity. House smirked at her reaction, and carried on through the door as he pulled it open before him.

Cameron followed him quickly down the hall. 'Well she's still in your office and she won't talk to any of us. She just keeps asking for you.'

'Run the patient through the MRI machine,' House deflected, increasing the speed of his hobble.

'We did,' Cameron admitted, running in front of him and wheeling around so he would stop. 'No abnormalities in the abdominal area. He went tachycardic half an hour after the scan, but we were able to stabilise him.'

House rocked onto his other hip. 'Start the patient on a course of beta blockers. It's thyrotoxicosis.'

Cameron looked puzzled. 'Thyrotoxicosis doesn't present with vomiting and abdominal pain. He has no heat intolerance or palpitations.'

'Is he sweating?'

'Yes, but that can be attributed to the vomiting.'

'Start the patient on beta blockers and run a thyroid test before he goes into a life-threatening thyroid storm,' House demanded, his conviction ebbing through his every word. 'And get out of my way.'

He pushed Cameron to the side, forcefully enough that she stumbled but gently enough so that he didn't hurt her. He didn't look back, his path firmly set in his mind. She was staring after him, he could feel it, but he didn't care about her precious feelings. Somewhere deep in his consciousness, he knew he'd have to deal with the girl eventually – he may as well get it over with.

The walk was as slow as he could manage, and was all too quick at the same time. Young people were his least favourite type of people, after geriatrics and the screaming little ones. His leg was aching like he'd been stabbed with a scalpel, so he stopped and took three more Vicodin. There were only six left in the bottle – Wilson would need to fill out another prescription for him, and soon.

Jessica looked around as he swung the door open. Those almond shaped green eyes hit him square in the memory, but he hid the reaction well. He just stood there ambivalently, staring at her while she stared at him – the little crease between her eyebrows almost familiar from somewhere he couldn't quite place.

'Who's your mom.' He didn't like questions – he was avoiding all of the socially-accepted pitch changes that came with language, avoiding giving anything away. It wasn't like he didn't know the answer already anyway, but he wanted confirmation, clarification. She looked too much like her to have no connection.

The girl looked down, closing her eyes for a moment before meeting his gaze again. 'Sonia. Sonia Porter.'

House worked his jaw.

'Married?' This time it was made to sound like a question, though it was a stupid question. He didn't like stupid questions, especially ones he knew the answers to, but he wanted the girl to say it. He wanted to hear it, make it seem real because he didn't want it to be. Envy bubbled quietly behind the Vicodin wall, the pain blocked by narcotics in his system.

He limped gently to the chair in the corner of the room, falling heavily into it as he leaned his cane against the arm; lifting his leg gently onto the footrest, he groaned slightly as he rubbed his thigh. Jessica stared at his hand while she answered.

'Yeah. When I was five.'

'So,' House sighed. 'Why did you... keep the Harvey?'

Jessica shifted uneasily. 'Because I knew Daniel wasn't my father. Mom forced me to take his name, but I fought her on it and she let me double-barrel it.' She looked at the floor, fiddling with her sleeve. 'He was an ass.'

'Was?' House was interested now. His eyes were narrowed as he watched her, trying to figure her out through her words and mannerisms. She was new to him and yet so familiar – but he couldn't work out why.

'He died,' she mumbled. 'Cancer.'

House leaned forward, a little sympathy seeping cold into his veins. 'What kind.'

'Brain.'

The girl was visibly distressed; despite her feelings towards the man, House could see that the amount of time he'd spent in her life had had some impact. 'So, what about your mom?'

Her eyes welled up but she wiped the tears away before they could fall. He leaned further forward, not wanting to hear the answer but his curiosity taking him over.

'She's gone.' Her eyes met his briefly, and his heart ached more than a little. She was gone and he would never see her again. She could never be more than a memory now, and all she'd left behind was this child in her mirror image. House squeezed his thigh again, more for the emotional pain than the physical.

'How.' His voice was barely audible, but the pain in his voice echoed around the room. Jessica felt it too and their eyes met through the milky ache. But hers glazed over as she remembered the last moments and she began to speak faintly, recounting the event to this perfect stranger.

_'It was a month ago. She looked so small in that bed, so empty without... him. She'd been lonely for so long, or at least it felt that way. He was only gone two years, but she always said it felt like a lifetime. I felt so lost, so ridiculously hopeless because I couldn't help her. So pale, so small... her skin looked like plastic wrap stretched over bone._

_Every time she slipped back into consciousness, she'd tell me another story. She'd hid the MND from me for three years before I picked up the symptoms. She always told me I'd make a good doctor. I hated her spaced periods, but I think I hated her lucid moments more – it was like God was teasing me, showing me what she used to be like before she left me forever._

_But in those last moments, she seemed even sicker, like she knew this was the last time. The last time I'd see her, the last time she'd see me – she never did believe in Heaven but then, neither did I. I took her hand and squeezed, but she didn't feel it. She couldn't. It was a while before she opened her eyes and I would have thought she was gone, except for her slow, ragged breathing. It was painful for me to watch, but I stayed because I didn't want to waste it._

_Her last story was the most important story of my life. She'd always told me she didn't know who my dad was, because she knew I knew it wasn't Daniel. I was always intuitive, she told me. I helped her sit up and she sat there, immobile and tiny, her eyes staring into some forgotten memory. For twenty years, she'd kept it a secret from me, even though she knew._

_And then she told me about my dad. For twenty years, I had been lost, with no sense of paternalism, no important male figure. I held her hand as she spoke, tears running down her face as she smiled as best as she could. Remembering the sights, the sounds, the smells. She seemed happy for the first time since I could remember, almost healthier for the story._

_I felt complete, somehow, like this knowledge and this fact I had been so curious about was the final piece to my own puzzle. It was ultimate gratification, knowing I was right and knowing the answer. It was bitter-sweet though, finding this clarity at that moment when her gravity was almost gone._

_The last thing she said was that she loved me, and that she hoped I'd find him one day. It was my final promise. I laid her down and tucked her in, telling her I loved her too and kissing her on the temple. She whispered my dad's name and Daniel's in the same breath, and then she was gone, and my world was broken.'_

The girl wiped her soaking face, her chin quivering violently. A sob escaped her lips and her hand shook as she wiped her eyes and nose with her sleeve. House watched her, his own pain sealed safely behind that wall of Vicodin. He only had one question.

'So why are you here?'

Jessica laughed once, humourless, as she wiped her cheeks again. 'For someone so smart, you can be really stupid.'

It hit House like a ton of bricks. 'Oh, no,' he protested weakly.

'Oh, yes.' She laughed once again. 'Dad.'

He couldn't deal with it. This wasn't happening. He took the pill bottle from his pocket and dumped a days worth of meds into his palm, swallowing them quickly as he clambered from the chair.

'Where are you going?'

'Away from you,' House said bluntly, pushing through to the hallway as fast as he could. He limped hurriedly to the nurses station in the centre of the lobby, pulling through the case files to see if the thyroid test was complete. He located it and flicked it open, scanning the results. 'Damn,' he mumbled. 'The thyroid's fine.'

'Hey!' he heard behind him. 'Why did you walk away? You don't walk away after that.'

House wheeled around, fury bubbling up inside of him. She was blotchy from the tears, and her hands were balled into fists like his own. She was too similar to deny, but he did it anyway. 'What do you want me to do? What d'you want from me?' he bellowed at her, stopping her short.

'I dunno,' she admitted loudly, her eyes still teary from her story. 'Something, anything that isn't ignorance!'

'Deal with it, kid. I don't do confrontation.'

Jessica looked like she'd been slapped in the face. Speechless for only a moment from his words, she soon mustered up enough courage to fight back. 'My mom said you were this... amazing guy, this awesome doctor. She told me to come and see you.' She paused, touching the side of her mouth with her sleeve before continuing. 'But she was wrong.'

House slumped slightly, looking left and right at the gathering, staring crowd.

'You're nothing but a pill popping, self-obsessed, apathetic ass.'

'Then why are you still here!' House yelled. Jessica faltered again. 'I don't want you! I have nothing to offer you, and wouldn't if I did.' He trailed off quietly, looking at the ground.

The words were so full of spite that Jessica held her chest. House looked up at her through his lashes, watching her begin to hyperventilate. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing tears down her pinched cheeks. Her teeth clenched against the onslaught of sadness and she stumbled backwards slightly before her legs gave out beneath her.

House started forwards slightly for reasons he couldn't place, but she looked up at him with an icy glare, stopping him in his tracks. As Cameron and Chase ran to help the girl up she pushed them away, not wanting their help because she didn't want to get up.

'I only wanted...' she started, wiping her mouth of the angry spittle on her lips. 'To know my father. But it's clear,' she muttered in between sobs. 'That I don't have one.'

'Oh, stop being so melodramatic,' House chided, leaning his full weight on his cane as he pushed his face closer. 'It's pathetic.'

'House!' Wilson yelled, aghast by his friend's display. House looked around at him and then away again, dissatisfied that he didn't get to finish. Wilson stepped closer. 'What has she done that is so awful, you have to publicly humiliate the girl like this?' He walked over to Jessica and offered her his hand. She looked up at him and took it slowly, allowing him to help her up.

House found himself furious at the way she was staring at his best friend as he pulled her up. Ungracefully, she fell into his arms, sending him into an uncomfortable fluster – House's fists clenched tighter and he took a step closer.

'Don't,' Jess yelled. 'Come anywhere near me.' She breathed deeply, stepping away from Wilson. 'I hate you.'

He would have felt guilty – he even tried to feel it – but something was wrong. The room blurred slightly, and he had to blink forcefully to try and clear the picture. He became aware that he was sweating, and when he opened his eyes the light of the hall was unbearable.

'Something's wrong,' he started to say, but as he moved his cane forward, it slipped from beneath him and he hit the floor hard.

'House?' came the worried cry, and he felt himself being rolled over.

His vision was even more impaired now, and darkness was seeping from every edge of the picture. He couldn't find the strength to move, his right leg trapped beneath him at an awkward angle as his arms splayed around him. His heart raced beyond human possibility, and he was soaking and freezing at the same time.

'Dad?'

It was like he was underwater. He felt someone take his hand and squeeze, and his heart went faster still.

'Dad! Wake up! I didn't mean it, I swear!'

His heart reached its fastest pace and, unable to cope with the exertion, he felt it stop in his chest. The shock opened his eyes wide, but they were unseeing. The blackness surrounded him and all of his senses went dead.

Then there was nothingness.


	3. Choking on the Bone

House didn't wake up in the hospital bed he was expecting. There were no incessant beeps from medical machinery; there was no overpowering scent of flowers, but he never got that when he ended up in hospital; there was nobody holding his hand, their clammy grasp loose as they slept in the chair beside him.

Instead, he sat up in a small, uncomfortable bed with a lumpy mattress and an itchy blanket. Mildly perturbed, he looked up and took in his surroundings. It wasn't the white, sterile room he imagined – in fact, walls of books stretched out for miles around him, and a murky green carpet swept along the ground. It was like his subconscious had melded together both his old living space and his old working space.

He rose from the bed, walking smoothly over to one of the shelves closest to him. It was lined with medical textbooks, some he'd kept in his room at school all of those years previous, and some from his office at Princeton-Plainsboro – he moved to the next one, and they were the exact same reams of medical literature. They kept repeating, every shelf he viewed the exact same order, the exact same texts. Each arranged by name and speciality; just like they had been in the book store, in his room, in his office.

'Hello, Greg.'

The voice was like bells, the most pure and beautiful music his ears had ever been blessed with. It was irrefutable, impossible, and incredible. His head whipped around to where the voice had come from, and was taken aback instantly.

The centre of the room was no longer the murky green carpet it had been. Pure white was flooding from the centre of the room, seeping across the awful dorm carpet and transforming it into some unearthly material. It crept up the invisible walls, and eventually House was stood in the middle of nothingness, and ethereal glow around his every extremity. In front of him stood the most beautiful and impossible figure.

He couldn't mistake those eyes.

The woman stepped closer slowly, her movements so perfect and fluid that she was surely a ghost – it was an implausibility that she was made of flesh and bone. From her shoulders to the tips of her fingers, from her hips to the tips her toes, each step swept like ribbons in the wind, like smoke in the night, like poison through blood.

She approached him, smiling coyly with that syrup-like, Cupids bow mouth. House could only stare as she became three feet, two feet, one foot away. Soon, she was immediately before him, and she raised a ghostly hand to up to his cheek, stroking it gently. His eyes fluttered closed at her touch, and remained closed as her touch faded.

The hand came back, but in a harsh slap that stung him right up to his eyes. They shot open, ice blue in her eerie glow, and glared through the awe.

'How dare you,' his subconscious hissed, the green eyes closer than they had been in over twenty years. 'How dare you hurt her like that.'

House couldn't fathom an answer.

'The only thing she's ever done to you is exist,' the false woman seethed. 'And you rip her to pieces when she's at her most fragile. She's not pathetic, Greg. You are.'

Though he knew it was his own mind telling him this, rationalising the guilt he felt for his actions, he still pleaded with his eyes, silent in the wake of the memory of Sonia. He knew that this was just the form his brain had chosen that would seem most logical, but he pretended for the moment that she was real.

'I'm sorry,' he muttered to the apparition. 'But I can't.'

'Yes, you can. You did this to yourself,' she replied, her voice melting into softness. She stroked his face again and he flinched, bracing for another flash of pain. 'You've always wanted this, deep down. You can do this.'

House closed his eyes again. 'No.'

'Try.' The single word was whispered in his ear, and he shivered slightly at the cold of her skin against his. He held out his hands to touch her, but there was nothing but air. He opened his eyes, but she was gone.

Darkness was seeping in again, and his heart thudded heavily; it echoed through his whole chest, shaking his legs. The force threw him against the bookshelves and he looked around for the source of the thud. As he pushed himself off the shelves, another thud hit his chest, forcing him hard into the shelves again.

A groan escaped his lips, and he grunted as he pushed back once more. The room was swimming and he was feeling faint. His eyes were rolling slightly in his head and his limbs felt weightless – he couldn't move them.

His chest thudded once more, and everything descended into black.

The light seeped through the cracks of his eyes and, like being pulled from underwater, sound faded quickly back into focus.

'He's breathing,' said once voice.

'Got a pulse,' said another.

His chest felt heavy, and he clocked at least two hairline fractures on two separate ribs. Something had snapped in his right ankle – not a bone, but something equally as important – and the ache in his dislocated knee almost eclipsed the pain of his thigh. As his body slowly woke from the shock of the heart attack, everything began to build to an excruciating crescendo.

His chest was bruising from the compressions, and the fractures on his ribs ached more with every breath. Someone straightened his leg, a loud snap echoing through his head as his knee was relocated; his ankle – as his mind cleared, he realised the important thing was a tendon – seared with agony.

All of this, and he couldn't scream for the exhaustion.

His eyes were open only a crack, but the light grew no less blinding as he waited to pass out from the pain. Sound was intermittent, weaving in and out like tuning a radio, and his eyes slipped closed as he felt the darkness tug at him once again.

And then a small squeeze of his hand pulled him back to Earth periodically. A hand touched his cheek, and another smoothed at his hair. More hands than he could count slid under his immobile frame, lifting him from the ground slightly as a board was slipped beneath him.

The hand in his own stayed, loosening its grip but keeping its presence as he rose from the floor. As his free arm dangled in the air, his fingertips slipping across the cold linoleum, someone pushed it gently across his chest – his fingers twinged, and he feared one or two may have broken. Something was pushed next to his throbbing knee – hard, long – and then the movement started.

With each step of the congregation, he struggled to hold on. The conscious world was quickly slipping from his mental grasp but he wanted to hold on. He didn't want to go back to that place; the torturous memory invoked an ache so strong that all the Vicodin and bourbon in the world wouldn't help him to forget. She would be there, his subconscious' response to the girl who'd knocked his life onto an entirely new course just by existing.

At the edge of the blade between awake and passed out, his mind broke through the decades of blockages he'd creating, and House had a bursting, dazzling moment of pure and sublime clarity. The simplicity of the moment shocked his very core, and his heart thudded dangerously in warning at the flood of feeling.

He was a father.

'Greg...'

The ghostly whisper shocked him awake, his hand flinching away from the ice cold skin on his palm. The sharp intake of breath made his ribs ache and he smacked his lips, gulping for more oxygen even though he knew it hurt. His mouth was bone dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth and rubbing against the soft flesh like sandpaper.

'Ugh,' he groaned, working his jaw slightly.

Someone made a noise next to him, a slow and deep breath that was the tell-tale sign of waking up. There was the creak of a chair as the person moved, and a groan symbolised them stretching from an awkward sleep.

House kept his eyes closed, vaguely aware that the light of the room would have bad side-effects on his already painful head. He moved his fingers and toes slightly to check they still worked, and grimaced a little at the pain in his knee and ankle. His involuntary movement provoked a response from the sleeper, and his hand was gripped by the same icy touch.

'Dad?' came the whisper. 'James, he's awake.'

James? House turned his head ever so slightly towards the voice, recalling it from somewhere but his memory was a little foggy. It was female, he recognised, but he couldn't quite place it. Then there were footsteps, distant at first but then they were close until they stopped, and House felt a weight at the bottom of his bed.

'House?'

He recognised that voice. Slowly and carefully, he opened his eyes, closing them quickly with a groan as the fluorescent hospital light hit his retina's like a shard of glass. The hold on his hand tightened and the weight changed, moving closer to him.

'House?'

'Water,' House replied hoarsely, tugging his hand away from the grip – it maintained its grasp, and he didn't have the energy to resist.

There was a fumble of plastic against wood, and he heard liquid hit the bottom of the cup. Soon enough, there was a hand behind his head and the cup was at his lips, and he was sat up slightly as the water was tipped gently into his mouth. The water was soothing and sweet, drenching his throat and sending cold right down to his stomach. He sighed in relief as the cup was drained, and his head was let slowly back down onto the soft pillow. He tried opening his eyes again, squinting against the harsh glare.

'Dad?' came a timid whisper.

House sighed. 'You still here?'

Silence. Of course she was still there – she wanted her father.

'House.'

He was sick of hearing his name now, even more so now that the tone in the voice that kept repeating it had changed. House's vision unblurred as his eyes became accustomed to the light, and he fixed his gaze upon his best friend. Wilson looked at him with disapproval, his eyes occasionally flicking to his side with an expression of worry mingled with curiosity.

House's interest peaked, and he set his face in the look he often gave Wilson when he was interested in his puzzles. Wilson noticed the stare and narrowed his eyes, avoiding the gaze momentarily – so slight that most would have missed it, but not House.

Setting it aside for further reading, House turned his head slowly to whoever was holding his hand. She wouldn't meet his eyes, staring at her own lap with her red-rimmed eyes and stretched out sleeves that she kept tugging at. But she kept hold of his hand like a lifeline, as if he was the only thing she had left. And House gave in to imaginary demands.

'I'm sorry.'

Jess' head rose slowly and she looked directly at him – her eyes hit him like they did every time. In her own way, she was as beautiful as her mother had been; he hadn't blemished her too much. His nose suited the cheekbones, which sat just nice on his oval face. She was so similar to her and so different – so similar to him and so different, too.

''S'okay,' she mumbled – he didn't believe her.

House knew Wilson was watching the scene, and wanted him to go away. Something in his head was telling him that Jess should be away from the man; it was stupid and irrational, but House struggled to fight it. It intensified when Wilson rose from the foot of the bed and walked over to the girl, putting his hand on her shoulder and asking her if she was okay. She flashed him a small smile and House's fists clenched slightly.

'Could you give us a minute.' House asked his best friend, a little gruffly.

Wilson looked over, curious and confused, and even a little hurt. 'Uh, sure.' He squeezed Jess' shoulder in a gesture of comfort and then walked away, his hand lingering ever so slightly before he finally left the room. House watched him go, his eyes narrow and something in him furious.

He just couldn't decipher why. His mouth moved before his mind, and he uttered the words before he thought about them.

'He's too old for you.'

House watched her eyes become shifty and she shuffled in her seat, clearly flustered. She tripped over her words as she muttered, 'Uh, I dunno what you mean.'

'Wilson,' House clarified, knowing she knew but doing it anyway. 'James. He's too old for you.'

'Dad...'

'Stop calling me that, I'm not your dad,' House argued.

Jess clenched her teeth and let go of his hand, sighing deeply as a look of frustration eclipsed the worry on her features. 'Well, you're damn sure acting like it.'

She pushed herself out of her seat, having already learned that staying in his sober and conscious company for extended periods of time could have negative effects on the mental state. House admitted to himself that he was slightly impressed – it took most people many years to build up a tolerance to him. Even Wilson had dealt with the onslaught of abuse for a few months before realising there was an escape route.

Jess was strong, and House felt his chest swell a little with a pride he'd never experienced before. There was an element of jealousy which he was struggling to destroy – he envied the way she was able to access and face up to her own pain, instead of running away from it and hiding behind a wall of drugs.

And she was okay with it. It was completely natural to her, accepting that something caused her to hurt. She allowed herself to cry, to shout, to give her heart up to things still knowing that it could end up broken. She didn't shy away from love – she'd come to him, not knowing if he'd accept her or not. She took risks with her own self, not just with other people or for the sake of an answer. She was still innocent, still naïve. She saw the world as black, white and gray, unafriad of the unknown and accepting that change could happen.

House didn't want to accept it, but he was proud of what he'd helped create, even if his part in it had been so ultimately small.


	4. I'll Try Anything Once

'No, Jena... Yes, I'm fine, honestly... Of course I'm eating, why wouldn't I be...?'

House frowned slightly, his eyes still closed half an hour after waking up. He'd been listening to the phone call for the past ten minutes, though he couldn't glean any information from it because it was so utterly one-sided.

'No, I haven't...' Jess paused, sighing. 'No, don't come... You what? Ugh. Why'd you tell them that?'

The pause this time was long, as the Jena character worked her way through the list of reasons why she'd 'done that'. House opened one eye slightly, peering down at his daughter. Her lanky frame leaned against the door jamb, disturbing the closed blinds and allowing a silent film of the outside chaos to stream in through the tiny gap. Her hair had been pulled into a rough bun at the back of her head, strands poking out at all directions – House knew she'd undone and redone it many times from boredom and anxiety.

Her clothes were ruffled and her eyes were puffy, surrounded by bruise-like purple rings that appeared even more severe against her milk-white skin. She hadn't slept – this annoyed him. He wasn't much to worry about, he did radical things all the time. Even Wilson and Cuddy kept their worrying to bare-faced lies, witty retorts and thinly veiled criticism. They never lost sleep – at least not visibly.

'Right,' Jess said finally, pushing herself from the jamb with her shoulder and uncrossing her ankles. She folded her free arm across her chest, tucking the fingers into the crook of the elbow of the arm holding her phone to her ear, and adopted a look of anguish. 'Well, thanks, Jay. I do appreciate it. I'll, uh, let you know where I'm staying... Yeah... I love you too. Yeah, I will. Night, Jay.'

As her hand fell from her ear and her eyes dropped to the small screen, House closed his narrow eye to avoid detection. There was silence, except for Jess' shallow breathing and a slight shuffle of her feet as she shifted. Then she spoke, apparently to thin air.

'Don't play dumb, House.' It was the first time since she'd met him that she'd referred to him by something other than dad. He couldn't decide how it made him feel – then again, emotions weren't really his strong point.. Slowly he opened his eyes, affixing her with a stare that held no emotion. 'I know you heard all of that.'

'It was interesting,' House replied simply, sitting up a little and suppressing the groan that was onset by a stabbing pain in his chest.

Jess dropped her head and clutched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes and blowing a deep breath from her nostrils. 'My friends have decided... to join me. They're on their way from Baltimore now.'

House said nothing, merely keeping his gaze on her. He was trying to read her, trying to figure out how she really felt about the unannounced visit. She gave him nothing, and he was surprised to find that it didn't annoy him. What did annoy him was that he was quickly learning that she was more like him than he originally thought – and that also terrified him.

When House next awoke, three figures came into a slow focus at the foot of his bed. Groaning internally, House rolled his eyes and tentatively raised himself up on his pillows. His chest was feeling better, slightly – he hoped he was going to be allowed to move soon without being barked at by irritable nurses.

'He's not responding to broad spectrum antibiotics, so it's not an infection,' Foreman began, no empathy etched into his dark features.

'We also tested his hair, blood and urine for drugs and alcohol, but he was negative for anything that would likely show up in a tox screen,' Chase added, looking briefly at the file in his hand before closing it and folding his wrists.

House nodded slightly, already bored by this differential. When silence fell and no more ideas were offered, he looked up at the two indifferent male faces and the female face that was trying too hard to look like she didn't care.

'And?' he asked, fixing them with a stare that told each of them they were idiots. 'You've told me what it's not. The next step is telling me what it could be.'

Chase and Foreman exchanged glances, while Cameron gripped the rail of the bed and rocked slightly on the balls of her tiny feet.

'Well,' Chase began when no one else would speak, and then cleared his throat. 'It could be an aortic abdominal aneurysm.'

Foreman shook his head. 'Would have shown up on the MRI.'

'Acute pancreatitis?' Cameron asked quietly, finally averting her eyes from House.

'Blood pressure's too low, and there's no indigestion.'

House's eyes flicked between each of his Fellows as they spoke, letting them shoot each other down rather than doing it all himself. When the ideas stopped flowing, House rolled his eyes once more and leaned forward. His eyes bore into Cameron's, and he ignored what he saw deep inside them.

'As an allergyologist, you probably should have said... allergic reaction.' House hid his smirk as Cameron faltered in what little resolve she had. Dropping the stare-off, House eyed his other two employees. 'Chase, you perform a scratch test. You two -' he pointed at Foreman and Cameron – 'check the apartment.'

To emphasise the finality of his orders, House slid down the bed so he was flat on the mattress, putting his eyes to the ceiling. Nobody argued, but nobody moved. He looked back down at them, raising his eyebrows. All three got the hint to go, turning in tandem towards the door. Chase got there first, politely holding open the door for Cameron who was behind him.

After Cameron and Foreman had exited the room, House staring after them inquisitively, Chase made to move through as well. His path, however, was blocked by the rapid approach of an earphone clad, eyes-to-the-floor Jess with a coffee in her hand.

The impending collision was prevented by her observation of his shoes, stopping her short. She wiped away the faint spots of splashed coffee from her Stones shirt, and removed one earphone as she paused whatever song she was engrossed in before looking up. House narrowed his eyes as she blinked twice, her mouth opening and closing idiotically. To his mild annoyance, Chase shot her a winning smile as he apologised – he walked off, looking back at her once.

Jess' eyes followed him all the way up the hall until the point he disappeared from her line of vision. Her head turned vaguely back to House's direction – all the while, he watched her with simultaneous curiosity and irritation – but she stared at the floor, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Eventually, she collected whatever thoughts were in her head and turned her attention, finally, to her father. Seeing him staring at her caught her off guard, making her jump so fiercely that her grip on the coffee loosened, sending it carooming to the floor. Jess' eyes closed in collection as the coffee cup hit the floor, and she folded her arms.

'Dad...'

'Sorry,' House said insincerely, removing all emotion from his face except amusement. Jess pulled a face at him and he smirked in return, averting his eyes once more.

'So, these Fellows...' Jess started, shrugging off the comment and the accident. 'Is it just them and James you screw around, or is it everyone you meet?'

She walked to the bed as she spoke, perching gently on the edge with her arms still folded as she hit him square in the memory with those unforgettable eyes.

House just shrugged. 'Pretty much everyone,' he replied, matter-of-factly.

Jess looked at the carpeted floor briefly, before meeting his gaze again. 'I thought it was just me who did it.' She shifted slightly, rolling her shoulders as she squared up to speak again. 'Only, there's a difference between what I do and what you do.'

'And what's that?'

'I'm not as cruel. And I feel sorry for it,' she finished, shrugging just the way he always did.

House snorted. 'And that's why you're an idiot.'

Jess raised an eyebrow, obviously offended but her curiosity getting the best of her. House smirked wider, sitting up slowly in his bed so he could lay his rationale on her with a clear view of the action.

'Screwing with people encourages truth, inspires them to be better. My Fellows work better under pressure, when there's conflict and competition. Wilson's just fun to mess with, and he has fun reacting. You feel guilty for seeking the truth and for getting people to live up to their nature. You observe the world like I do.' He paused, the gravity of his own words hitting him as hard as they hit her. 'But you see some black and white.'

'The world isn't just shades of grey,' Jess argued.

'And that's why you're an idiot. Everybody lies – that's why there's no black and white.'

Jess smiled small. 'How do I know you're not lying to me, now?'

House rolled his eyes, but smiled all the same. 'Everybody lies but me.'

'Liar.'

He could only smirk. So this was bonding, he thought to himself. It was going well; they were getting on like they had known each other for years, and he was surprised to find that it felt good. He'd never had the inclination to have children, mostly because he didn't like them. In fact, he didn't like people in general – that was a well established fact.

However, he knew it would all go wrong. He was hard-wired to ruin everything – he always had. He sabotaged relationships, subconsciously finding ways to destroy them from the inside out. He was almost surprised that Wilson still kept him around.

House didn't want to destroy this relationship – but he knew he would, eventually.

After one more day, House was finally allowed to wander around the hospital – albeit, it was in a wheelchair. When he wheeled himself into the conference room, everyone eyed him in exactly the same way they always had, like he was the evil genius and they were his lab rats.

Only this time, things were different. In a chair in the corner sat Jess, sipping a coffee and listening to her music through a single earphone. Or at least, that's what she wanted everyone to believe – House knew she was more interested in their differential than anything her iPod could play to her.

With the blinds closed, House disobeyed the hospital rule and stood at the head of the table, cane in hand.

'Minions,' he grinned, looking at them with a dark grin. He was keeping one eye on Chase at all times – the childish 'mine' attitude was kicking in, and he didn't want to share his daughter with anyone.

Foreman knotted his fingers and leaned back in his chair, fixing House with a stare. 'The scratch test didn't turn up any results, though we did find mould under the sink in his apartment. We ran tests on it but, no cigar.'

'Hmm,' House mused, twirling his cane in his fingers. He began to pace slowly, staring at the whiteboard where all of the patient's symptoms were scribbled in Cameron's painfully neat hand. 'Vomiting and nausea, tachycardia, and elevated blood pressure.'

Silence. The sound usually made him happy, but there was a patient's life on the line and, more importantly, there was a puzzle left unsolved.

'Think!' he yelled, slamming his cane on the table just hard enough to make a noise, but not so hard as to break the glass. Every member of his team jumped – Jess mildly twitched.

Nobody spoke until a tiny voice came from the corner. 'What about pheochromocytoma?'

House added it up in his head, scouring every inch of the theory until he felt entirely satisfied with the diagnosis. He pointed his cane square in Chase's face, a few millimetres from poking him on the nose. 'You,' he said bluntly. 'Run a 24-hour urinary catacholamines and metanephrines test. Cameron, Foreman...' He looked up at the ceiling like he was thinking. 'Take the night off.'

As the black Fellow and the female Fellow closed their files and made to leave the room, Chase stared at House aghast.

'Why?'

House tapped his chin with his fingers, mockingly pretending to come up with a reason. Then, he gave Chase a hard stare and leaned into his face as he answered, almost menacingly. 'Because I'm your boss and I said so.'

With a look of thinly veiled hatred, Chase grabbed his copy of the case-file roughly and stood up, squaring his shoulders as he tried to match House in height. The gap proved too much, and the Aussie skulked off out of the office – House noticed the quick glance the doctor shot at the staring Jess.

After a few moments of silence and House feeling proud of himself, Jess finally spoke up. 'What did you do that for?'

House grinned and narrowed his eyes, twirling his cane between his fingers again. 'He needed to learn his place again. He's been getting a little... too big for his boots.'

Jess folded her arms, frowning. 'I think it was a little harsh.'

'You would. You've only seen his good side.' House stopped the cane inches from his own face. 'And by that, I mean his ass.'

A mild blush swept across her cheeks, before she managed to swallow it down. She shifted slightly in her seat and then quickly stood, frowning deeper now. Without a word, she pushed past him and out of the conference room.

House was left alone, his feeling of pride deflated and replaced by disappointment.

'I bonded with my daughter.'

House saw in his peripheral Wilson's reaction. His best friend stopped filling in the patient file mid-sentence, the right hand in his hair falling slowly to the desk in front of him and the left hand on the pen loosening its grip. The awe was unmistakable on his face, but House kept twirling his cane above his head, still laying on the coach in Wilson's office with his ankles crossed.

'You're telling me,' Wilson struggled, attempting to merge the concepts of House and bonding together. 'You made a connection with another human being... that wasn't based on games, manipulation and threats?'

House ignored the insult. 'Yup.'

Wilson looked away, the awe on his face now mingling with bemusement.

'But it won't last.'

The new reaction was similar to the first reaction, only with more confusion. 'Why?'

House shrugged, trying to keep his voice even as he spoke his rationalisation. 'Because I ruin everything.' Wilson shrugged, conceding the fact; House shot him a look of disdain, before continuing. 'I don't wanna ruin it, but you know me... She'll do something and I'll say something, push it too far. It's a well established pattern.'

'Yes,' Wilson granted. 'But this is different. You have a chance to break the pattern. She's not just a random patient or stranger in the street – this is your daughter, House. You can make this work.'

House shook his head. 'No. I can't.'

Suddenly, he rose from the couch, putting his full weight on the cane in his hand as he limped painfully to the wheelchair. Before Wilson could speak any further, House had wheeled himself from the office and closed the door behind him.


	5. A Time for Daring

James Howe lay in the hospital bed, an IV in the back of his wrist and a heart monitor attached to his finger. He'd lost ten pounds since he was admitted, and his fighting weight hadn't been incredibly high – through the gap in his gown, the ribs poked achingly through the skin like he'd been starved for weeks.

House stared through the glass doors from his seat in the wheelchair, twirling his cane slowly in his fingers. The patients symptoms flew around his head in a kind of ordered chaos: nausea and vomiting, tachycardia, very low blood pressure... nausea and vomiting, tachycardia, very low blood pressure...

The test had come up negative; James didn't have pheochromocytoma. There was no tiny, malignant tumour on his adrenal glands, causing all of his symptoms. They were back to square one, and they didn't have a clue what was wrong with the man.

All the while House stared, waiting for a new symptom. Nothing had happened in the hour he'd been sat there, except that Cameron had come to change the bag of saline hanging on the stand next to the bed, the only thing that was doing the patient some sort of good. In the five days since James had been admitted, House had had more treatment.

House hadn't seen Jess since the previous day. She'd left the hospital for her hotel at six the previous evening, and had never turned up since. It was now lunchtime on the Saturday – the only reason House had come in on a weekend was to hang out with his daughter before he inevitably screwed it up.

In all of his mulling, House hadn't noticed the door sliding open next to him. A nurse had entered the room with a wheelchair and was helping the patient up from his bed. It was at that moment that House noticed James had been sweating an awful lot. As quickly as he could, he wheeled himself through the open door and ran into the empty wheelchair, startling the nurse.

'Doctor House!' she exclaimed, almost dropping the patient, who could hardly stand up on his own.

'Your eyes hurt?' he asked the lolling man.

He shook his head, his eyes only open a crack. 'No, my head.'

Without saying anything else, House took himself quickly out of the patient's room. The nausea and vomiting, the symptoms he'd been admitted with, had passed slightly – without them, his state was infinitely more interesting. Hypertension, tachycardia and now photo-sensitivity; he stopped in his tracks in the doorway, before turning back around to the nurse.

He ignored her and spoke directly to James. 'You're weak.'

'I can't stand up on my own, it hurts too much.'

'Nurse?' House acknowledged her now that she was useful. 'Check his BP.'

She frowned at him as she pulled a cuff from the cabinet and pulled it gently up the patients arm. When it had been released and she'd checked it by her watch, her eyes widened quickly. 'It's eighty over fifty!' She quickly led the patient back to his bed, lying him down slowly.

House smirked. 'Interesting.'

In the consultation room, House swung his cane around looking pleased with himself. Foreman, Cameron and Chase all looked up at him expectantly, but he didn't want to indulge them just yet. He wanted them to work it out on their own.

'I want you...' He thrust his cane in Chase's face. 'To give the patient 250 micrograms of tetracosactide.'

'Why?' Chase asked, trying unsuccessfully to hide his bitterness.

House held a finger up, ticking it back and forth like a parent to a naughty child. 'Because I said so. Test his blood cortisol levels before and after you administer it.' Chase glaring up at him, House just grinned at his minions in self-satisfaction. 'Go!' he sang, limping over to the coffee machine at the other side of the room.

Cameron leaned over the table slightly – in an effort to be inconspicuous, which didn't fool House – and whispered something to the Australian Fellow. Nodding once, he slowly raised from his seat and, shooting House a filthy look, left the room. The other two members of the diagnostic team sat in silence for a small while, before Foreman dared to speak.

'You know what the patient has, don't you.'

House tapped his chin gently. 'I might do.'

'House,' Cameron whispered, pleading.

He shook his head, unrelenting. Horrified by his blatant disregard for the patient's welfare, Cameron stood and stormed out of the room after Chase – House smirked to himself.

'You're an ass,' Foreman deduced.

House shrugged. 'You should leave too, you know. The other two will be talking about you behind your black. I mean, back.'

Foreman glared at him, portraying through a single look just how much he simultaneously respected and resented the man. He sat still for only a moment more, before – slower than the other two had – he rose from his seat and ambled towards the door. He shook his head as he left, which only amused House further.

Turning to face the window, House put his cane over the back of his shoulders and wrapped his wrists over the top of it, as if he was in the stocks. He heard the door open behind him but ignored it, assuming it was just one of the team or Wilson coming to check up on him.

'Addison's disease.'

House whipped around at the voice. Jess was leaning on the door frame, sipping a coffee with one hand and spinning her cellphone in her fingers with the other. He frowned at her nonchalance, leaning on his cane as unfamiliar emotions flooded his system.

'Where've you been?'

She shifted slightly so that she was more comfortable, and shrugged. 'I went on a date last night and didn't feel like getting up.'

House narrowed his eyes. 'Who with?'

Jess reddened slightly. 'None of your business.'

Biting back the bile that seemed to be crawling up his throat, House took a deep breath and nodded theatrically. 'Fine. How did you know?'

'That note you left on the patient's chart? Yeah, I read it. And now I know why you treat your team like idiots...' She paused to take another sip. 'None of them checked it. Chase came in while I was staring at the patient file and he just walked right past it.'

'Yeah,' House agreed. 'They'll figure it out.'

'Eventually,' Jess concurred, smiling.

'You're an arse,' Chase snarled on entering House's office.

The diagnostician sat up from his intense focus on his laptop and removed his reading glasses, staring up at the underling.

'You're gonna have to be more specific.'

'You knew the diagnosis but you still sent me off to do that test.'

House folded the legs of his glasses slowly, avoiding Chase's gaze. 'I needed confirmation.'

Chase faltered slightly, before repeating his previous sentiment. 'You're an arse.'

He'd not noticed Jess sitting in the chair in the corner of the office, and so jumped slightly when she spoke to him. 'That's a bit mean. True, but mean.'

She was playing with the grey and red ball that House usually kept on his desk, throwing it up in the air and catching it repeatedly, passing it from hand to hand and squeezing it. House found it uncanny – he played with it in the same way when he was DDX-ing. Chase seemed to notice it too, but brushed it off – he grinned at her instead.

'Hey! I thought you were coming in this morning.'

Jess glanced at House quickly, who felt increasingly livid at the exchange, and then looked back at Chase. 'I, uh, was too tired. And when I did come in, I thought I'd see House first.'

Chase seemed thrown by her words, visibly stepping back and frowning. 'O... kay. Well, I'll see you later, I guess.'

Still flabbergasted he left the room, his run-in with House a distant memory now. His departure was watched in its entire by House, who followed him with his eyes until he was completely out of sight. At that point, his eyes snapped to Jess – he put on a playful smile but his eyes held a warning.

'You know, he's too pretty for his own good.'

Jess just shrugged, her ears turning slightly pink. 'I hadn't noticed.'

House leaned back in his chair once more as his daughter avoided his gaze; he stared at her, analysing her. He also came to one strong resolution – if Chase even so much as thought about her in the wrong way, he wouldn't be so pretty anymore.

_It was like he was in the corner of the room, watching from a birds eye angle the scene playing out below. He ran his fingers slowly up the side of her arm as he kissed her once more, and she raked her hands through his long, blonde hair._

_Blind anger shot through his veins and the hairs on every inch of his body stood up on end as if they were ready for a fight. His breathing quickened as he bit back on the fury that was rising from his stomach up his throat, and his fists clenched so tight that his nails almost drew blood from his palms._

_A thin sheen of sweat appeared on his upper lip and on his brow, and the muscles in his back seemed to tense. He was ready to pounce, jump down on the atrocity below and knock the grin right off his face. The moment was ripe, all he had to do was focus on the anger and he could strike..._

The slamming of the door woke House immediately, and he twitched his head in the direction of the sound. The light blared in from the hall and he squinted towards it, making out the blurred shape of a person blocking the light partially. It helped House accustom to the assault on his senses, though only slightly.

'House...' Wilson sighed, unimpressed by the unwelcome addition to his office space.

The older man shrugged as he sat slowly up, swinging his able leg around quickly while his hands helped the lame one follow suit. He leaned forward and rubbed his face, the tiredness in his eyes and brain making his every movement and thought sluggish. He couldn't even find the energy to insult his best friend.

'What're you doing in here? Surely right now is when you perform your clinic duties,' Wilson stated, sitting at his desk and picking up his pen with his left hand as he opened the patient file with his right. 'And by that I mean taking up a room while you nap.'

'This was closer,' House grumbled, leaning back on the cushions of the sofa.

Wilson just scoffed and chose to ignore his friend, diving into his work while House struggled to remove his dream from his head. It clung to the inside of his eyelids like poison ivy, scratching at his corneas and infecting his bloodstream with its evil.

'I think Jess wants to sleep with Chase,' House said, quietly but matter-of-factly.

This took Wilson aback for a second. 'Doesn't any straight girl? Even your daughter can't avoid the onslaught of that level of pretty, House.'

House shot him a look of disdain, and then continued. 'That's not the worst part. I think he wants her too.'

'And?'

'And,' House retorted, rudely. 'He's a sleaze-ball and a mediocre doctor at best. She can do better.'

Wilson narrowed his eyes as he processed the words, analysing them and chewing on them thoroughly before carefully constructing his reply. 'I think... this isn't about Chase. You just don't want to share her, at least not yet when you've just met her.'

'Oh, what do you know?' House bit back, standing as he spoke and eyeing Wilson with a death stare. 'You couldn't see a bad match if it came up and bit you on the ass. Which it has. Three times,' he finished cruelly.

'Screw you,' Wilson threw at him. 'And get out, I'm trying to work.'

House shook his head as he limped towards the door of the office. His hand gripped the handle tightly and he paused, hanging his head in what felt a little bit like guilt – but he couldn't quite tell.

'Sorry,' he mumbled.

Wilson was even more taken-aback by this than the previous comments. 'It's... it's okay. You, uh, still up for monster trucks and Chinese tonight?' He chose his words carefully, speaking them slowly in case he set House off again.

'Sure,' House replied, simply and quietly.

In silence, the disabled diagnostician hobbled out of the office without looking back at his best friend, whose eyes followed him with curiosity. The dream still clung to the depths of his brain and he couldn't shake it off.

He needed coffee and he needed fries.

The teller was astonished when House pulled out his wallet to pay for his coffee and meal. He just handed her the money in silence, holding up his hand and shaking his head slightly when she offered him his change. Mouths gawked open and whispers followed him all the way to the booth he'd subconsciously chosen, but he ignored them completely.

Upon sitting down, he gave the cafeteria a cursory glance. There was nothing interesting going on, so he just hunched slightly over his burger, biting into it and slowly chewing, thinking long and hard.

Wilson was wrong – he didn't want to occupy Jess and keep her all to himself. He just didn't want Chase to have her. He'd never liked Chase; he was too pretty, too cocksure, too spineless. He thought he could get by on his looks and his name alone, that he didn't have to prove himself to go the places he wanted.

And House knew all of that was a lie, that he was just telling himself all of this to rationalise the irrational feelings he was experiencing. He'd never been jealous like this before; sure, he'd been jealous of Mark, Stacey's new husband, but this was a new kind of jealousy, a protective kind of jealousy.

It wasn't even that Chase wasn't good enough for Jess – it was that no one was good enough for Jess. She had his genes, his intelligence, his sarcasm and wit, and he hadn't been able to find anyone who could ever come close. Except Stacey but she was gone, and maybe...

He wouldn't even go there. All he knew was that he didn't want Chase anywhere near his daughter. No one was going to stop him from keeping the pair apart. At least until he messed everything up and hurt Jess so bad that she'd do anything to get back at him. And by anything, House meant Chase.

The idea made him clench his fists, sending the contents of his bun onto his plate with a loud 'slop'. He threw down the bun in frustration and leaned back in the seat heavily, thoroughly annoyed by everything.


End file.
